Youth and Technology
Cyber Media and Moroccan Youth
As-Swat Shabab
Abstract
Street smart communication technologies (blogs, podcasts and vlogs) are creating new opportunities to engage youth in participative and pluralistic media in Morocco. Using tools readily available to them, this project will engage young Moroccans in producing multimedia content for the Internet. Based out of Tanmia’s community Internet access centers and using innovative low cost hardware donated by the US Corporation GENESI and Sun Microsystems, the ultimate objective of this project will be to create a community based media platform that will play host to audio and audio visual programming with a Moroccan identity, that uses Moroccan Arabic (and other local languages such as Amazigh dialects), and that is designed with production values that appeal to Moroccan young people.
Project Justification and Background Traditional mass media, radio and television, in Morocco have been extremely limited and state controlled for decades. There are two main television channels and a handful of radio stations. In May 2006, one new private television channel and ten new radio stations were created under the provisions of the 2004 law (no 93) overseeing the liberalization of the audio visual sector in Morocco. While these recent results should be welcomed as a sign of modernization of the sector, the total absence of civil society actors (NGOs and associations) and community run media is a sign of continued resistance to more complete freedom of expression. However, internal and external pressures to modernize the traditional state owned media companies are growing. Any effort to enlarge the engage civil society actors in community media could contribute to a real and historical reform whose positive effects would easily extend to neighboring countries in the region. Such reform is a process that started at least a decade ago, when satellite television has made access to international media possible for a
As-Swat Shabab
Abstract
Street smart communication technologies (blogs, podcasts and vlogs) are creating new opportunities to engage youth in participative and pluralistic media in Morocco. Using tools readily available to them, this project will engage young Moroccans in producing multimedia content for the Internet. Based out of Tanmia’s community Internet access centers and using innovative low cost hardware donated by the US Corporation GENESI and Sun Microsystems, the ultimate objective of this project will be to create a community based media platform that will play host to audio and audio visual programming with a Moroccan identity, that uses Moroccan Arabic (and other local languages such as Amazigh dialects), and that is designed with production values that appeal to Moroccan young people.
Project Justification and Background Traditional mass media, radio and television, in Morocco have been extremely limited and state controlled for decades. There are two main television channels and a handful of radio stations. In May 2006, one new private television channel and ten new radio stations were created under the provisions of the 2004 law (no 93) overseeing the liberalization of the audio visual sector in Morocco. While these recent results should be welcomed as a sign of modernization of the sector, the total absence of civil society actors (NGOs and associations) and community run media is a sign of continued resistance to more complete freedom of expression. However, internal and external pressures to modernize the traditional state owned media companies are growing. Any effort to enlarge the engage civil society actors in community media could contribute to a real and historical reform whose positive effects would easily extend to neighboring countries in the region. Such reform is a process that started at least a decade ago, when satellite television has made access to international media possible for a